Revenge of the Damned Read Online Free

wire-defined corridor, with nothing to release its anxieties.
    And then, suddenly, there was the reek.
    The skunk bear bounded forward—according to instincts and general piss-off.
    The reek—also according to instincts and general piss-off—whirled, curled its worm tail over its back, and sprayed.
    The spray from its anal glands hit the caracajou on its muzzle. Instantly the creature rose to its hind paws, howled, and, trying to scrub the awful smell from its nostrils, stumbled away, one set of conditioning saying find shelter, the second saying find the two-legs that can help.
    The reek, satisfied, hissed and scuttled off.
    "Th' stink't tool work't," Alex whispered.
    Sten was busy. Once again the barrier wire was drilled, pinned, and then, after the two crawled past, replaced.
    The ship sat in sleek blackness, less than fifty meters away. Neither man went forward. Alex slowly reached inside his ragged tunic, took out four segmented hollow tubes, each less than one centimeter in diameter, and put them together. That made a blowpipe nearly a meter long. At its far end, Alex clipped on a pierced fish bladder, which was filled with finely pulverized metal dust.
    Kilgour put the tube to his lips, aimed the blowpipe at a bush, and blew. The invisible dust drifted out, collected around the bush, and settled. Both men went nose into the dirt and thought invisible . Minutes later, the Tahn patrol charged up. Then they stopped and milled about.
    In their initial casing of the escape, Sten and Alex had noted that inside the field's perimeter were electronic detectors. They theorized that from a distance the detectors would be fairly simple: probably radar-based. This was, after all, a world far behind the front lines.
    The Tahn corporal commanding the patrol lifted his com.
    "Watch… this is Rover. We are in the suspect area, clear."
    "Rover… Watch. Are there any signs of intrusion?"
    "This is Rover. Hold."
    The overage and overweight corporal used his torch to scan the ground. "Rover. Nothing."
    "This is Watch. Are you sure? Sensors still show presence in area."
    "Clot if I know," the corporal complained. "But there's clottin' nothing we can see."
    "Rover, this is Watch. Maintain correct com procedure. Your inspection of site recorded… your report logged that no intrusion has been made. Return to guard post. Watch. Over."
    "Clottin' wonderful," the corporal grumbled. "If there's nobody out here, we done something wrong. If there's somebody out here, we're gonna get the nail. Clot. Detail… form up."
    The Tahn guards doubled away.
    Very, very good, Sten thought. The metallic spray that Alex had blown onto a bush had obviously registered on the nearest sensor. An alert squad had been sent out and had found nothing. Yet the sensor continued to show the presence of something alien. Therefore, that sensor's reports would be ignored until a repair person fixed that sensor.
    And Sten and Alex had free passage to the dispatch ship.
    The port was not locked. Alex went to the rear of the ship, while Sten headed for the control room. The unanswered question was whether he could fly it.
    The controls were very, very simple.
    Sten was in the pilot's chair, touching controls, when Alex rumbled into the tiny command center.
    "Tha's nae fuel," he said.
    Sten muttered four unmentionables and touched computer keys. Yes, there was fuel. Enough to lift them off into space. Enough to boost them into stardrive. Enough fuel to…
    He fingered keys on the navcomputer. Enough to take them out of Tahn space?
    Negative.
    He slammed the control panel off and spun. "And all of this is for nothing."
    "Nae, nae, lad," Alex said. "Ah hae checked the fuelin't records. This ship'll gae a' topoff in three days. All we hae't' do is seal it, gae back through th' wire, an' then home, an' wait f 'r it aye beat. Can we noo come back again?"
    Go back through the wire. Go back through the paddies. Go back to the three-year-long hell of the prison camp.
    They could